J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Naples, Paestum and Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sketches of Naples and Vesuvius, from the Sea 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of Naples and Vesuvius, from the Sea’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Verso:
Sketches of Naples and Vesuvius, from the Sea 1819
D15927
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 10 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Finberg first identified, the sequence of sketches on folios 3 verso–12 (D15913–D15919 and D15922–D15930) represents detailed panoramic views of Naples drawn from the sea.1 The artist perhaps had the opportunity to make these drawings from a boat during the outward or return trip to Paestum and the Amalfi coast. This page contains two studies. The upper vista depicts Vesuvius from the west with its ever-present smoke trail emanating from the crater, whilst the lower vista represents part of a view of the Neapolitan shoreline to the west of the Castel dell’Ovo including the Chiaia waterfront and Mergellina to Posillipo. The composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 11 (D15928).

Nicola Moorby
July 2010

1
Finberg 1909, p.551.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Sketches of Naples and Vesuvius, from the Sea 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-sketches-of-naples-and-vesuvius-from-the-sea-r1137851, accessed 19 April 2024.